Sweat Money!

How can you connect the environment with sports?
This question was the start of our project!

Sport is a big passion of both of us, so we were looking forward to launching a sport project, even though combining these two subjects was not easy.

After we had brainstormed for a long time, the idea for “Sweat Money!” popped up in our heads. – How about burning calories to save the  environment?

The collaboration team

Our main idea

The idea of our project “Sweat Money” was to find sponsors who were willing to donate money for every 100 calories (kcal) we would burn in our training over the course of four weeks. It was our intention to donate the money we would collect to an environmental organization called  “Friends of the Earth International” (www.foe.org) and to link environment, sports and finances.

Side note: In the text we write about “calories”. There is a difference between “calories” and “kilocalories” (kcal). A kilocalorie is the heat required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree. The “calories” we talk about when it comes to food are actually kilocalories.

We learned a lot, especially from our “ups and downs”!

To start with, we learned how difficult it is to find sponsors.  Although we had put a lot of effort into the making of a promotional video, we were not successful. We approached big Swiss companies like Rivella, Kambly Ragusa, Ovomaltine and lots of others, but most of them did not reply.

Our collaboration partner Valeria explained to us that raising funds is very difficult and that “you have to really spam them with mails or calls until they respond”. Now we know that it is nearly impossible to find a big company that is willing to sponsor such a project; would it have been easier to target smaller companies or private people instead?

Screenshots from our promotion video:

To search collaboration partners, we worked with flyers. So we learned to create posters with special apps. That was a really nice work and it worked well.

 

Every project has ups and downs. – Of course, our project too!

Full of energy we had started our project, but then we realised that it is very hard to find sponsors, who are willing to donate to a not fully “through through” project.

sponsoring list
Companies we tried to win over as sponsors

Fortunately, we had the possibility of getting to know Valeria Verzàr, a sport student from Chur. She has experience in successfully completed projects. Her suggestion was to sign in in “I believe in you” (ibelieveinyou.ch), a big community which helps sports people to find financial help to achieve her dreams, aims or projects. An excellent option – but not for us – unfortunately!

We don’t have the time to start such a big project right now because we have to study a lot for our exams and train hard. So we came to the conclusion that it is better to burn calories and charge them into fictitious money.

Valeria and her friend from Brasil, a professional surfer, were willing to help us in “sweating money”! Our team was also joined by several students from our class. We could also say – a perfect mixture. Our sports weeks were not rich in events even though we burnt a lot of calories (fettrechner.de) with our great team!
If we made you curious, watch the video below and enjoy it!

Final results of 4 weeks “Sweat Money”!

Until today we are still willing to find sponsors, even tough our project is now finished. If anyone is interested in taking part in our project as a sponsor or teammate, there is still the possibility to get in touch with us. The raised money will be donated to the environment organization “friends of the earth” (www.foe.org).

4 weeks “Sweat Money” =  CHF 14’057.-
(every 100 kcal of sweat was worth CHF 10.-)

We would love to see some motivated participants or sponsors in the comment section below.

So we can do something good for the environment while following our passion: sport! That would be a big pleasure for us! If you are interested, we are happy to get in contact with you! You can write to us using the comment box below.

The Authors: Jasmin & Sarina

Participants in our project

Valeria Verzár, VAVE (vavesports.com), supporter and teammate from Switzerland
Gabriel Sodré (instagram.com), teammate from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro
Stefanie Ott, reviewer

Tools used

Video for the sponsors [powerdirector]
Video final results [Powerpoint]
Tracking watches [Polar & Samsung]

On-topic posts on dwme
Cycling for a better environment
Protecting nature by bike
Q36 – Movement

☷ See the project teams here »
☵ Some words about the contributions »

One thought on “Sweat Money!

  1. Very cool! I hope some enthusiastic people who have the means take up the idea and will continue it with you! This is really a great idea, I like it!!!

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